Why Gene Hackman Really Was The GOAT
"I was trained to be an actor, not a star."
As has sadly become an all-too regular occurrence as of late, last month, we lost one of our greats. Gene Hackman - the legendary star of The French Connection, The Conversation, Unforgiven, and numerous other masterpieces - passed away at the age of 95 alongside his wife, Betsy Arakawa, in tragic circumstances. It's an upsetting end to what had seemed like a perfect final act for Hackman, who retired from acting in the early 2000s and with it any particular semblance of a public, celebrity profile. He'd gotten to go out (mostly) on his terms. It was a fairytale ending for a generational talent who had lit up the big screen for over 40 years, and who had earned numerous accolades in the process.
But aside from the specific circumstances of Hackman's death, there's another reason why this is so sad - what it represents. Hackman was another of that New Hollywood generation who has now left us - an additional break in a chain that has been slowly coming apart in recent years, as the chorus that gave life to the most iconic era of cinema approach the end of their journeys, and leave behind their own unquantifiable and myriad legacies. William Friedkin, Donald Sutherland, David Lynch, James Earl Jones - the masters are leaving us, and the world feels like a lesser place for it.
Even more so for Hackman, who - with his enduring onscreen versatility and inimitable presence - exemplifies that feeling of disconnect even more potently. The links are still there with the likes of Al Pacino, Robert De Niro, and Dustin Hoffman, but Hackman's arrival could have only occurred during the American New Wave. He was beautiful, but in a thoroughly human way - a different kind of actor to his peers, cut not from the mould of his idol Errol Flynn, but from the concrete and discord of America's post-War era. Hackman channeled it all with his performances - the angry existentialism of the sixties, the paranoid isolation of the Watergate years - they were reflective of a nation's troubled psyche as much as they were complex character portrayals in and of themselves.
Those features were part and parcel for the New Hollywood, yes, but Hackman grasped the assignment in a way only he could. By the time he took on his breakout role as Buck Barrow in Bonnie and Clyde, he was 37. Before then, he'd served in the military and studied journalism. His dad left the family when he was young, and his mother passed away in 1962. In short, Hackman had already lived a life before he got to Hollywood - a crucial background context which may have contributed to the ineffable authenticity of his performances.
To be that authentic is to be vulnerable - something Hackman himself was all too aware of. "It really costs me a lot emotionally to watch myself on-screen," Hackman said in an interview with Reuters years ago (via Metro). "I think of myself, and feel like I'm quite young, and then I look at this old man with the baggy chins and the tired eyes and the receding hairline and all that." It's a sad irony that Hackman's human believability seemed to exact an emotional toll, because that very kind of unvarnished beauty - and he was beautiful - was part of what made him so special.
That aspect, in addition to the other elements that comprised his career - specifically his versatility and the prolific nature of his work - makes it easy to argue that Hackman was the actor of the 20th Century. Not the most iconic, perhaps - the Brandos and the Bogarts could more easily lay claim to that accolade - but then again, he never tried to be. In his own words, he was "trained to be an actor, not a star," which is perhaps why he was so durable. Hackman moved through multiple Hollywood eras and shared with us some of the greatest performances ever put to screen. He was, in other words, the acting GOAT.
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